Discourse, Figure, Suture: Lyotard and Cinematic Space

The focus of this chapter is on cinematic space – and how Lyotard’s works on cinema and painting can illuminate this concept. First of all, I will discuss the way cinematic space was conceived at the turn of the 1970s in France (and thereafter in Anglophone journals such as Screen) in relation to fi lm form and cinema as institution. This is the context in which Lyotard’s early work explicitly on cinema, ‘Acinema’, was received in fi lm studies. Subsequently, through a brief consideration of two fi lms, I will consider the relevance of the fi gural to an analysis of cinematic space. These fi lms are Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010) and The Metamorphosis of Mr Samsa (dir. Caroline Leaf, 1978).